


Obviously Oblivious

by ceilingfan5



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Tentacles, cecil isn't human, heads up they don't do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:45:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceilingfan5/pseuds/ceilingfan5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil is looking for comfort after the latest shared town-wide nightmare but Carlos keeps getting distracted by dumb things like science and the fact that Cecil has tentacles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obviously Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buffalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffalo/gifts).



> No spoilers for the newest episode because I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. References episode 25 spoilers.

Though he often listened to Cecil's radio show, Carlos tended to use it more as a comforting and orienting background noise while he worked instead of actively absorbing the information (unless, of course, he was mentioned, in which case he froze to the spot like a deer in headlights and couldn't hear anything else for the next ten minutes). So when the night of collective nightmares came, he hadn't noticed the warning and stayed completely oblivious, yet again, to what was going on around him.

It hadn't even occurred to him to be concerned, because the city council still had not been able to schedule him an appointment to figure out why he didn't get the public nightmares like the rest of the locals between the latest appearances, disappearances, glow cloud incidents, and PTA meetings, and because his insomnia, however useful in the lab, refused him more than a few hours of sleep every so often anyway. He figured if he'd been anywhere else, he'd have wasted away by now, but this was Night Vale, and on the couch he sat, reading scientific journals on his phone and ignoring his existential terrors again. 

So really, the nightmares, scientific curiosity notwithstanding, shouldn't have had anything to do with him that night. Except for one problem: it was Cecil's couch. 

It had been a nice date, as usual, and he'd only embarrassed himself about five times earlier that night, practically a record, until Cecil had invited him in for coffee. They had shared said coffee in his kitchen with pleasant but typical small talk, but no more than a chaste kiss or two afterwards. He didn't think it was entirely his fault, honest, and he'd been dragged along to enough romantic comedies with his sister to know that coffee didn't mean coffee and something had gone terribly wrong when he was screwing around on his phone and Cecil had made some excuses about being tired and the night being an important one and gone to bed early. Maybe he'd forgotten to kick his guest out, or maybe he was too afraid to be rude, but he hadn't felt this awkward about a date since grad school, which was an impressive achievement. 

Maybe it wasn't all his fault, but Cecil acted so jumpy around him when they got close. It could have been nerves, or maybe he didn't want to seem too interested in sex, or maybe he wasn't into that at all. Maybe Cecil's lack of experience rivaled his own. That thought was actually comforting, and he had to cover his embarrassing chuckle in the dark, slightly damp echo-chamber of Cecil's apartment, afraid to ruin someone else's sleep. Especially that of the sweet radio host. 

God, he wished it was easier to express feelings. But he'd learned the hard way that charting your hormone levels in and out of their presence and then handing them the data in a slick, professional-looking folder over a nice dinner was not socially acceptable. Wasn't that the most earnest confession a person could give? You couldn't betray biology. What was the point of exchanging dying plants when you could point out your attraction on a chemical level? 

But he really, really didn't want to screw up what he had with Cecil. Not after a year of guesswork and tiptoeing and professional phone calls. So if he wanted to take it slow, and let him pretend to sleep on the couch, and blush at each other over curly fries and bunless basilisk burgers, it was fine by him. Besides, if Cecil wanted him, he'd be sure to make the first advances, right?

His mind chased itself in circles, worrying over the slightest details of their romantic excursions thus far as a relatively safe alternative to the classic 'who am I's and 'what am I doing here's and 'what if my life is a big joke and this town is all a coma dream and I never woke up after that incident in the chem lab sophomore year and that's why I smell sulfur and bananas when I get nervous's that usually plagued him until the wee hours of the morning, at which point he'd refill his coffee cup and check on his experiments. But tonight, instead of the wheezing gurgle of his personal coffee maker and the whispered chanting of his neighbors, all he could hear were Cecil's quiet snores in the other room, and a few muffled screams in the distance.

Maybe not so distant, after all, or very muffled either. He watched the clock on his phone, which still included both letters and ancient runes but ticked on in a generally forward direction when it was in a good mood, and listened to the city crescendo to one screech of thousands in synchronized terror. It rattled his bones in perfectly harmonized agony, stripped paint from the walls and curled up with it in the fetal position in the shag carpet he'd been afraid to sink his feet into for fear of losing his loafers. It lasted an eternity and a second, a lifetime and a sneeze, which was an official unit of time there, as further proof that chronology was as much of a joke to Night Vale as unalienable rights. 

He was so caught up in being a scientist, in wishing Cecil didn't follow rules so well and had a pen laying around so he could take notes, in quantifying what could have caused such a perfectly exact group experience and hoping he'd remember enough to add to his data at home, that he didn't notice the wailing die off to a hushed sniffling emanating from his boyfriend's room until the Voice of Night Vale himself padded into the hallway in his cartoony eldritch slippers and horrifically printed vintage pajamas. He nearly jumped, used to having the world to himself at this hour even after such a phenomenon. 

"I-Ah-Cecil! ...Hello." He sat up straighter on the couch and looked him up and down, searching, unfortunately, for evidence that that had just happened before checking whether or not his boyfriend was alright. 

Cecil gave him an uncomfortable attempt at a smile, the worst of which was thankfully hidden by the darkness.

"Good morning, dear, sweet Carlos," he struck up cheerily, about an octave too high for normal conversation and a little cracked at the end. "How did you enjoy your first community nightmare?"

Suddenly everything made sense. Well, alright, vastly less than everything, but certainly several relevant things. He cursed himself for not noticing it in the first place or putting it together when it was clearly so obvious. This was the kind of thing that got him in trouble so much in college, or, to be quite honest, everywhere, always, his entire life. 

"Well, about that..." He fidgeted with his phone. What was the best excuse? Badmouthing the local government was a surefire way to land himself in boiling acid, but admitting your paranoid fear-fueled insomnia to your boyfriend doesn't exactly make a good date night. Not that it was so fantastic to begin with. "I...haven't had one yet. Still."

"Oh." 

He baffled at the way Cecil could put so much disappointment and relief and who knows what else into one tiny syllable. He wondered if it was something you learned working radio or just a natural talent. 

"What a shame."

Carlos nodded for lack of a better answer and watched the nervous man shift from foot to foot and hug himself for safety in the light of the softly glowing cactus in the corner. 

"Do...You want to talk about it?"

It was Cecil's turn to look baffled. 

"No one's... ever not had them before."

"Oh."

He tried not to squirm a little on the couch. He didn't like to admit it, but Cecil's apartment made him a little nervous, especially when he wasn't focused on something in particular. Things seemed to move when you weren't looking, and sometimes when you were. Ordinary things like the kitchen sink and the pictures on the shelves were off-limits and dangerous things made beautiful centerpieces and bookends. And the shadows writhed and scurried and wriggled behind Cecil, almost as if...? There wasn't enough contrast to tell. Lack of sleep was surely getting to him. 

"-With you?"

Carlos shook himself out of distraction and tried to stop staring at the wall behind Cecil. 

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

The other man paled and chewed on a thumbnail, as if he'd barely worked up the courage for the first time around. 

"I...simply...was wondering. If. Maybe. Um. If maybe I could sleep with you on the couch? Just for a few hours? It's- everybody does something to... to feel better. After the community nightmares? And, well, usually I'm alone so I can't but I thought now that I have you I could instead not be alone and be with you maybe as an alternative?" His voice crept higher and faster with each word until his request was almost inaudible. 

Carlos puzzled a bit. 

"You...want to sleep with me on the couch?"

"If that's not an inconvenience I don't want to be a bother you know what forget I said anything. I'm fine!" He gave him another one of those smiles and Carlos' heart writhed in his chest like the shadow tendrils behind Cecil. Wait, what? He checked again, and again they disappeared under direct scrutiny. 

"No, no Cecil, that's. I wouldn't mind at all."

"Really?" he squeaked, and plopped down next to him.

"Well, I was going to add that there isn't going to be enough room, and...Cecil, this is your apartment, why don't we share your bed?" It was so rational he didn't have time to be nervous about the implications. The shivering, horrendously-clothed lump trying to curl up in his lap stared up at him nervously as if he hadn't even considered the possibility, which was probably true. He was saved from answering, however, by the embarrassing high-pitched yelp Carlos made when something grabbed him from behind.

"Cecil! Cecil, something's in here with us! We've got to get out!"

Cecil, just off a terrible nightmare and blindly trusting of anything that came out of Carlos' beautiful lips, gasped and tried to climb him for safety. Carlos choked, feeling the tendrils of sinister shadow he'd noticed on the wall earlier wrapping tightly around him, and really started to panic. He tried to scramble away from their reach and fell off the couch with an ass-cracking thump, taking Cecil with him. The impact separated them and startled the cactus, which lit up the room brightly enough to do surgery on the coffee table.

Carlos searched the room frantically with wide eyes and ended up staring at a very upset Cecil, complete with wobbly lip and shining tears. He felt terrible for knocking him off the couch, but he had to get them away from that menacing, tentacled...

Tentacles...

Cecil's awful pajama shirt had ridden up from the fall, and in the bright bio-luminescence that could have only mostly come from the cactus, it once again became painfully obvious how stupidly oblivious, insensitive, and all around bad with relationships Carlos was, because the tentacles were not coming from some invading, brain-sucking nightmare-feeder, but from sweet, kind, enthusiastic, loving Cecil, who was quite clearly having a terrible night. 

Four slim indigo appendages settled around him, two on each side, and they looked somehow as if they had always belonged there, which, most likely, they had. He wondered if this was what all the hesitations had been about, all the secrecy and fidgeting and nervousness. Poor Cecil had been afraid to show him these, and rightfully so, he realized, hating himself for his reaction. It wasn't right.

It made him think of coming out at the dinner table all those years ago, expecting and with a prepared statement against the full "Ay Dios mio, Carlos, what will we tell the priest/neighbors/rest of the family/people at the supermarket" lecture from his mother and instead getting an earnest "Mijo, you find someone you love and you bring them home to meet the family and, por Dios, let them teach you how to enjoy yourself". His sister and brother, even, after exchanging betting money at long last under the table, supported him, promising to kill any guys that hurt him and encouraging the idea of him having fun for once in his life. 

(His brother had later pulled him aside and declared that he was crazy if he'd ever thought it wasn't obvious, and boasted of the years he'd spent protecting his "oblivious gay nerd brother" from the rest of the kids at school. Carlos had been suspicious that school could have been any worse for him, but appreciated the sentiment and didn't want to think about the alternative.)

He was supposed to love and support Cecil, not scream and knock him off the couch when he needed him most.

And yet here he was again, thinking off in space instead of helping the person who made his pulse accelerate with a casual smile and spoke adoringly of him on the radio. No amount of big brotherly protection could save him from his own obliviousness. He was going to have to do something about this himself. 

Trying not to cringe at his previous reaction, Carlos let his gaze settle back on the voice that had so lovingly guided him throughout the last year of his life and expected nothing in return. Now finally together, he owed it to him to pour even a fraction of his affections back at him, no matter how badly he fumbled. 

"God, Cecil, I'm so sorry."

He mumbled something the scientist didn't recognize and really hoped wasn't a curse of some kind. 

"I didn't-I mean- I- shit, Cecil." He shook his head and stopped himself before it could get any worse. Instead, he inched closer, took his head gently in his hands, and kissed him softly on the lips. The light dimmed a little and Cecil relaxed in his hands, a perfect mixture of chemicals getting the right message across. He pulled back, satisfied, and tried to retrace his steps.

"You don't-?" His still beautiful voice trembled with fear, and he knew for sure now. He'd really thought Carlos was going to leave him when he found out. 

"You just startled me. That's all." And he kissed each tentacle to prove it, one, two, three, four, Cecil blushing purpler and purpler with each brush of his lips. He hoped his stubble wasn't too itchy. He didn't want to ruin the point because he'd lost his razor to the spider union in his bathroom for unspecified architectural plans. "And I'd love to sleep in your bed to protect you tonight, although I don't know how much help I'll be."

Cecil blushed and had to protest.

"They wouldn't dream of harming you or your perfect hair!"

"Glad to know I can fight them off with my good looks. I haven't taken karate since I was ten." He gave him a good, humble, I-love-you-and-I'm-sorry-I'm-so-oblivious smile and Cecil looked nearly as happy and relieved as the time he'd decided to see him after the bowling alley incident. And really, it was the same to him. He'd thought he'd almost lost something dear, only to gain something new and even better. 

Carlos stood and stretched, groaning when he heard something pop in his back. Cecil looked up at him cautiously, but got a smile and a hand up in return. He hugged his boyfriend tightly, the physical expression easier to stammer out than quantifying his feelings at the moment, and smiled when he felt not one, but three pairs of limbs clinging tightly to him. The awkward walk to the bedroom was no hitch too big, and falling into bed laughing with his boyfriend was something he'd been waiting to do for a long, long time. 

Cuddled tightly against one another, Carlos sporting a lab coat and boxers after kicking off his pants for comfort and Cecil, still in those hideous, swirling, fantastically-Cecil pajamas sans the slippers, neither could have been happier. And softly, slowly, as the lights dimmed and their breathing slowed and Night Vale settled in again, seeking comfort in a bottle or a safe room or a warm, beautiful, perfect, occasionally oblivious scientist, both drifted off to a gentle, dreamless sleep, tangled lovingly in each other's appendages.

**Author's Note:**

> Mermaids will come later. I had to get this out first and I've been holding out on Meg long enough. 
> 
> Cecil is wearing these hideous things: http://www.thebestvintageclothing.com/newest-vintage-arrivals/vintage-mens-short-pajamas-wild-print-1950s-size-large-weldon/


End file.
